Cinema Q: The Lost Coast

Written and directed by Bay Area native Gabriel Fleming, The Lost Coast examines the emotional conflicts that arise when three old high-school friends reunite one Halloween night in San Francisco. Now twenty-somethings without much direction in life, they intend to party the night away. Instead, they face increasing sexual confusion, guilt, and longing.
Jasper joins Lily and Mark as they venture into the Castro District, where the revelry is underway. Mark, who dated Lily in high school, now flaunts his homosexuality; Lily is barely able to hide her bitterness. And Jasper, though engaged to be married, has memories of his own regarding Mark: The two once had a sexual encounter on a camping trip to the California coast that left Mark longing for more and Jasper in denial. No wonder, embarking on a quest to score Ecstasy, they find only rising tensions (and a dead body, which doesn’t ease matters) as old feelings resurface. The eventful evening is framed by a series of e-mails Jasper sends to his fiancée in an attempt to explain it.
Fleming shot most of The Lost Coast outdoors in March 2006—a month that saw twenty-nine days of rain. His small cast and crew braved a crowd of 200,000 to capture the chaos of Halloween in the Castro District, working their way across the city through Golden Gate Park and to the ocean that brings Mark and Jasper full circle.